Polish market of ornamental plants
Recently, a monograph of a doctoral thesis on the comparison of the floricultural production and trade market in the Netherlands and Poland has appeared on the market. While it is intuitively known that the Dutch one is larger, the work itself shows in a very interesting way the dependencies and trends in both floricultural markets.
EU trade
It is quite common knowledge that the flower trade is dominated by the Netherlands. Dr. Cichocka's work provides further numbers to confirm this thesis. According to Cichocka, the Netherlands' share in EU flower exports was around 90% in the cut flower sector and 70% in potted flowers. In the same study, Poland recorded a share of 0.65% for cut flowers and 0.84% for potted flowers. We are talking about the years 2009-2021. However, as you can read in the work, a significant percentage increase in the competitiveness of this sector was recorded in the pandemic years. The competitiveness of the Polish potted plant market increased by 8.57%, while at the same time the competitiveness of the Dutch arable sector increased by only 0.74%. However, with very low volume turnover on the EU market, these data are not very significant for Poland's overall competitiveness position in this sector.
Farm structure
According to the publication, the average area of agricultural land on farms in Poland and the Netherlands in 2009-2017 was quite similar. In Poland it was 3.08 ha and in the Netherlands 3.19 ha. However, in the Netherlands a significant part of the area was already occupied by greenhouse facilities, while in Poland it was not invested in the land: In 2008-2011 in the Netherlands over 30% of farms had a greenhouse with an area of 1.5 ha, while in Poland in 2010 only 10% of farms had a greenhouse with an area of over 0.7 ha.
The structure of farms producing cut flowers in both countries is different. While in Poland this type of production is mainly carried out by small and medium-sized farms, in the Netherlands it is large farms that lead (on average 11 times larger than in Poland). Differences were also visible in the amount of work: Dutch farms employed more than twice as many workers as compared to farms in Poland. At the same time, each subsequent (statistical) hectare of crops required less work from humans, which indicates good work organization and investments.
The costs of floriculture production under cover in the years 2009-2017 were 21 times higher in the Netherlands than in Poland. A large component of this situation is the difference in the level of wages in both countries.
Considering the dynamics of changes, a decrease in costs per 1 ha of agricultural land was noted in both countries, which shows an improvement in the efficiency of their use. However, in Poland, this decrease also applies to their level on the scale of the entire farm, which, given the rising prices of production factors, may indicate savings on inputs in the production process. Costs were used more efficiently in the Netherlands. Despite similar production and economic parameters of farms of the same class, Polish farms are economically weaker than Dutch farms.
The whole publication (in Polish only) can be found here.
Flexibility
In 2020-2021, a decrease in the area of crops was visible in both countries, with the Dutch withdrawing 1355ha from production in 2018, which is approximately the same as the entire area under cover with floriculture production in Poland. However, in 2019-2021 it increased again by 545.62ha. This shows the flexibility of the Dutch in managing their own resources.
Summary
A comparison of ornamental plant production under cover in Poland and the Netherlands indicates significant differences in the structure of farms, production costs and income. Dutch farms are characterized by a larger scale of production, higher specialization and greater efficiency. Polish farms are less efficient and the entire sector has a more fragmented structure. Without increasing the scale of production, investing in modern technologies and specializing in the production of niche products, competitive pressure from Dutch farms or producers from Latin American countries will increase.